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masked man took advantageof his carelessness. The man shoved him to the ground onto his back and leapt on top, wrestling him for his weapon. The weight of the heavier man made it hard to breathe. And as they scuffled, they kicked up dirt. Kinkaid sucked dust into his lungs, choking on it. Sweat stung his eyes and made it harder to see in the dark.
    Still, he wouldn’t let go of the Glock.
    He rolled down an embankment and his spine collided with sharp rocks. The blows nearly knocked the wind from his lungs. And his wound felt as if it had been torn open. It stung like acid. Blood loss had made him weak. He struggled for consciousness.
    And when the masked man thrust an elbow against his throat, Kinkaid saw stars. He felt his muscles give way when his air ran out. And the moon flickered to nothing.
     
    Up the hill, Kate heard a faint noise coming from the shadows, but too much was happening for her to worry about it. The older woman who had stood next to her, trembling, was pulled from her grasp. The terrified woman scratched Kate’s hand with her nails in desperation.
    “Please…don’t let them do this.” With eyes wide, the woman begged the others in the van to save her, but no one moved. She screamed when one of the gunmen grabbed her by the hair and dragged her off. She was hauled into the brush—along with Joanna, the wife of the man who tried to buy his way into the van. The two women would pay a price that had nothing to do with money.
    “George, no! Tell them you’ll pay, George,” Joanna cried out, and reached for him.
    “Stop this, please!” he pleaded for his wife.
    George and Kate had lunged for her hand, but armed men held them back. Others threatened to shoot into the van. Not even the hostages in the vehicle were safe. And for the first time, she noticed that one of the masked men held up a video recorder. He pointed it toward the women to record what would come next. Kate’s eyes trailed back to the scene, unable to look away.
    She watched as one of the abductors unsheathed his machete, mere feet from where she stood. He grabbed the hair of George’s wife and raised his weapon. The moonlight glinted on the blade. Joanna bucked and fought and begged. Her eyes bulged in terror.
    But the man held firm—and made his first cut.
    “Oh, God. No.” Kate made the sign of the cross and shut her eyes, yet she couldn’t stop her ears from hearing the garbled screams, the weighty strikes of the blade, and the aftermath of blood splattering the foliage in a nightmarish rain.
    Kate retched as their captors cheered. George fell to his knees, weeping. And the video cam had recorded everything.
    They had all been forced to watch the beheadings of two innocent women. And in that instant, every hostage glimpsed a fate no one had wanted to imagine. Their survival would be left in the hands of men they would never understand—men who had no respect for life. Tears filled Kate’s eyes, and she tried to swallow, but couldn’t.
    She was shoved into the van, along with George, both of them too weak and numb to resist. George sobbed and rambled incoherently, calling his wife’s name. She had no doubt the man was in a deep state of shock.
    After the vehicle door was shut and locked, she heard voices outside, but they soon faded.
    In the dark vacuum of the van, the sounds of weeping and the stifling smell of fear almost suffocated her. Kate kept her silence, struggling to find solace in prayer. The women’s screams and the hacking sound of the blade replayed in her head, over and over and over—a torturous echo of violence she’d never forget. She stopped praying and let the darkness and horror close in on her.
    She couldn’t stop shaking.
    Kate knew she had to find a lifeline to God—some sense he was with her—despite the abject cruelty she had witnessed. She wanted to believe that tomorrow would be another day and that God would give her strength. Instead, fear and her own human frailty had defeated her.